Repeat of the 1880s?

[daylatedollarshort]

I was at the library last night and all the books are self check out and in now at a kiosk. There were two librarians there just talking and seemed happy to have something to do when one of my DVDs would not scan readily. One said they purposely left RFID tags off some of the checkout items so they could have human interaction with patrons again. He was joking but it was funny because there was really some truth in it.

Safeway here has self check outs. The local library has 3D printers so in the future I assume we could just go there and make our own combs, musical instruments, lamps or whatever. The age of the tricorder (evolving smart phones) and replicators (evolving 3D printers) is coming to pass.

Lower skilled jobs are being replaced by technology yet SV mucky mucks resorted to wage fixing cartels to keep tech salaries in line and can't import enough H1-B visa workers to meet demand. Maybe seeing a two tier society is more pronounced because of where I live, but I do think we have to rethink as a society how we are going to address in the future the widening gap between those benefiting from technology changes and those losing their jobs from it. Not even factoring in outsourcing to lower wage countries, there just aren't going to be enough living wage jobs for everyone as technology replaces more and more non STEM type jobs.

 

[NW-Bound]

... Maybe seeing a two tier society is more pronounced because of where I live, but I do think we have to rethink as a society how we are going to address in the future the widening gap between those benefiting from technology changes and those losing their jobs from it. Not even factoring in outsourcing to lower wage countries, there just aren't going to be enough living wage jobs for everyone as technology replaces more and more non STEM type jobs.

+1

Even STEM jobs are getting limited too. How many do companies like Google or Apple need or can use?

 

[marko]

But then on a thread titled "Job Sharing" on this forum today, there are some who advocate less full time work and replacing it with quality of life.

"imagine a world where most people work mostly part time. Instead we'd [my edit] raise our children better, pay attention to our governments actions, and generally improve society..."

So, would a reduced workload be a benefit to all? Have everyone at the beach while the machines do all the heavy lifting? Is nationwide modified-RE workable with everyone just clocking in 20 hours a week?

Personally I don't see how to pay the bills with everyone working part-time but it's a nice warm and fuzzy sentiment.

See the "Greece" thread.

One of the things I've learned from this forum is that losing one's job can be a beginning and not an end. Bad news: "machine took my job"; Good news: "machine took my job".

Unlike the 1880's there a so many social safety nets in place today that prevent a Dickensian outcome.

 

[NW-Bound]

Taleb, the author of the Black Swan book, brought up this phenomenon of "Winner Takes All". In ancient times, before the arrival of radio and TV, there were traveling troupes who could make their living entertaining villagers. There were traveling circuses bringing their acts to remote corners of the world on horse drawn wagons. And generally there are enough works to keep everybody busy.

Now, only the top entertainers make good money, and lots of it. By TV and now the Internet, people now want to listen to the top opera singers, watch the best tennis players, etc...

This situation is now spread to other industries. There used to be a dozen cell phone makers. How many survive to still make smartphones? And of theses few smartphone makers, they only need to hire a few programmers and engineers for design work.

In my recent RV trek, I saw that there are trends in agriculture to use more machinery to replace human labor. They now use tree shakers to harvest fruits, and huge trimmers to prune trees. I guess even illegal immigrants are now getting replaced by machines.

Not all jobs can be replaced by robots though. But these are menial, hard or dirty works that few want to do.

 

[Totoro]

Not all jobs can be replaced by robots though. But these are menial, hard or dirty works that few want to do.

Maybe gentrification?

I mean: hand-made cupcakes at 20$ a pop. Exclusive design shoes. hand massaged grassfed lobster.

In other words: artificial scarcity, status competitions.

I feel sadder now.

 

[NW-Bound]

...
I mean: hand-made cupcakes at 20$ a pop. Exclusive design shoes. hand massaged grassfed lobster.

In other words: artificial scarcity, status competitions...

Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions (1899) where he coined the famous phrase "Conspicuous Consumption", described how rich people or the leisure class preferred hand-made goods, despite their often inferior quality to machine-made goods. The hand-made goods were of course more costly, hence bestowed a higher standing to the consumer. Their small blemishes were considered charming and having distinctive marks, compared to the mass-produced merchandise that was more uniform and exact.

So, perhaps we are not far from the industrialization era of 1880s, as the OP proposed. Maybe we never left it.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

In my recent RV trek, I saw that there are trends in agriculture to use more machinery to replace human labor. They now use tree shakers to harvest fruits, and huge trimmers to prune trees. I guess even illegal immigrants are now getting replaced by machines.

Not all jobs can be replaced by robots though. But these are menial, hard or dirty works that few want to do.

I think this is the farm of the future - no bugs, indoors, not subject to weather variations, all year growing season, LED lights, low water usage and what is used is recycled, stacked vertically for minimal land use:

Q&A: Inside the World's Largest Indoor Farm | Nat Geo Food

Analogous to your entertainment changes due to TV and radio are universities with MOOCs. Why listen to a mediocre professor in person and have to commute when you can watch the best lecturers in the world online from your PC or TV at home?

 

[NW-Bound]

I think this is the farm of the future - no bugs, indoors, not subject to weather variations, all year growing season, LED lights, low water usage and what is used is recycled, stacked vertically for minimal land use:

Q&A: Inside the World's Largest Indoor Farm | Nat Geo Food

Years ago, in Epcot Center, we saw a demo or prototype of this large-scale indoor growing concept. I do not know if it is still there, or they have made any more progress. This Japanese facility looks real enough at a daily production of 10,000 heads of lettuce.

But I wonder what the production cost is. Produce is outrageously expensive in Japan, and what is economically viable there may not be here in the US. My wife saw that in the market there, they break apart celery bunches and sell them by individual stalks. Same with bananas.

Analogous to your entertainment changes due to TV and radio are universities with MOOCs. Why listen to a mediocre professor in person and have to commute when you can watch the best lecturers in the world online from your PC or TV at home?

There we go. How do we disagree with that? But that means only the best workers in any field will get to keep their job. The rest of us will have to compete for the menial work. Heck, some of us may not be competitive there either, if they measure our output against the physically tougher immigrants.

Man, I am glad I am old.

 

[purplesky]

2021 or thereabout.

Peterbilt Demonstrates Autonomous Driving Technologies | Transport Topics Online | Trucking, Freight Transportation and Logistics News
http://www.autonews.com/article/20150506/OEM06/150509916/daimler-to-test-self-driving-trucks-in-nev.

And don't forget the delivery drones... er... parcelcopters...
DHL Beats Amazon, Google to First Planned Drone Delivery | Transport Topics Online | Trucking, Freight Transportation and Logistics News

The newest trucks do have collision mitigation technology and will have technology to help drivers.

But truck drivers will not be replaced anytime soon.

A self driving truck could work going across Kansas and Colorado on a new highway built specifically for trucks. Who will pay for the highway.

The big issue is money. The trucking industry is not going to spend billions of dollars on a technology that offers no profit to them.

Are tax dollars available to build highways and roads to accommodate self driving trucks. Not going to happen anytime soon.

You can build a self driving truck. But you won't be able to use it in the real world anytime soon.

The railroads are already moving trucks nationwide so thats another reason the trucking industry has no incentive to buy into a billion dollar technology that would still require a driver behind the wheel.

 

[Sarah in SC]

NW, your mention of Veblen reminded me of this great history lesson. If you've never seen any of the "School of Life" video series, I recommend it highly!

This particular one is the History of Ideas: Work, and focuses on the history of what "work" meant over the centuries, and how our comparatively new concept that work should be fulfilling came from the Renaissance. Veblen gets a shout-out about halfway through.

 

[ERD50]

The newest trucks do have collision mitigation technology and will have technology to help drivers.

But truck drivers will not be replaced anytime soon. ...

Are tax dollars available to build highways and roads to accommodate self driving trucks. Not going to happen anytime soon.

You can build a self driving truck. But you won't be able to use it in the real world anytime soon.

The railroads are already moving trucks nationwide so thats another reason the trucking industry has no incentive to buy into a billion dollar technology that would still require a driver behind the wheel.

It's always tough to predict the future, but I do lean towards agreeing with this view. It will be very tough to deal with every situation out there, and each error will attract attention and lawsuits. Even if the overall safety is better (the media/public won't do the math, just respond to the 'sensation').

I think we will see more and more 'assistance' to help keep the driver from danger. The risk is the driver pays less attention, counting on the system. I think this should be augmented with a system to monitor the driver's attention - are the retinas scanning the road ahead, the mirrors, is the car drifting, slowing or speeding in an odd pattern? If anything looks questionable, get the driver's attention, threaten to pull over and disable the vehicle if they don't pay attention to the road. Stop texting.

Maybe special roadways with only smart vehicles on them (or maybe limited to certain times or even a buffer zone - the first and last smart vehicle in a group of smart vehicles would have LED signs that only other smart cars can enter that zone?). Maybe the road could use some lower, more reliable tech like a cable or something buried to make it way easier for the vehicle to follow the road than camera/GPS? Smart vehicles on that road would all have 'beacons', so every other vehicle 'knows' where they are, and proper distance is maintained.

But with a buffer zone, other vehicles could share that road, it would not be only for the smart vehicles. That might make the transition easier?

-ERD50

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions (1899) where he coined the famous phrase "Conspicuous Consumption", described how rich people or the leisure class preferred hand-made goods, despite their often inferior quality to machine-made goods. The hand-made goods were of course more costly, hence bestowed a higher standing to the consumer. Their small blemishes were considered charming and having distinctive marks, compared to the mass-produced merchandise that was more uniform and exact.

So, perhaps we are not far from the industrialization era of 1880s, as the OP proposed. Maybe we never left it.

Several years ago I decided I was going to make a statement to myself and buy a pair of shoes made in America. Nothing fancy or hand-made -- just USA-made. I went to the Red Wing store and ordered a pair of plain-toe work oxfords like the old Army-Navy stores might have carried. It took the store two weeks to get them, and they cost twice as much as I might have paid for a similar pair of shoes at Payless. They weigh about 50% more than a similar pair of Asian-made shoes, and the soles are so inflexible they feel like they're made of wood. They'll probably never wear out, particularly since I can't stand to wear them more than two days in a row.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

I think this is the farm of the future - no bugs, indoors, not subject to weather variations, all year growing season, LED lights, low water usage and what is used is recycled, stacked vertically for minimal land use:

Q&A: Inside the World's Largest Indoor Farm | Nat Geo Food

Most of the largest dairy farms in Wisconsin keep their milking herds confined to buildings. The cows carry global positioning sensors so the herdsman can determine whether it's restless or not moving enough, an indicator of its well-being.

 

[Independent]

I have trouble seeing automation as the key problem. Western countries have been automating for the last 200 years, replacing workers as they did.

In 1870, 70-80 percent of the US population was employed in agriculture. As of 2008, less than 2 percent of the population is directly employed in agriculture.

But, somehow we were able to spread the benefits of higher productivity that came with automation to a very broad range of Americans.

I think much of reason that happened was political, and much of the apparent reversal is also political.
When China went from Mao to Deng, and US culture/politics made it acceptable for companies to close plants in the US while buying from China, we saw a hit to US wages. That dynamic has been working its way through our economy for 30 years.

In the long run, it seems that US wages for tradeable goods have to approach the lowest world wages for those goods. Technology may be improving lifestyles worldwide, but foreign workers can move up the ladder at the same time US workers move down (or stagnate).

From a personal perspective, when I retired I thought my non-cola'd pension would rapidly shrink to a minor slice of my retirement income. Hasn't happened yet. But, I've got kids who are struggling with a low wage economy.

The 1880's were followed by decades of political struggles and actions (anti-trust, immigration limits, National Labor Relations Act) that moved the needle back to labor. Somehow, I don't see the political consensus for that today.

For retirees trying to bet on the political winds, this may mean that we want to stay hitched to equities. If capital continues to move around the world, getting the best deals it can, then I'd like to get my share.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

I have trouble seeing automation as the key problem. Western countries have been automating for the last 200 years, replacing workers as they did.

But, somehow we were able to spread the benefits of higher productivity that came with automation to a very broad range of Americans.

That broad range of prosperity is a relatively recent phenomenon. My mom and dad both lived as kids without plumbing or electricity -- a pretty common condition for the 25% of americans living on farms in 1930. In 1940, only 44% of Americans owned their own homes, and that number was pretty consistent decade by decade up until the midpoint of the century, according to the Census Bureau.

In my own life, broad access to higher education lifted the members of my immediate family out of the working class and into relative affluence. I'm sorry to see that access becoming limited in recent years by prohibitively high costs; I'm not sure the opportunity I enjoyed when I came of age in the late 60s would be there if I were that same young man today.

 

[Mulligan]

That broad range of prosperity is a relatively recent phenomenon. My mom and dad both lived as kids without plumbing or electricity -- a pretty common condition for the 25% of americans living on farms in 1930. In 1940, only 44% of Americans owned their own homes, and that number was pretty consistent decade by decade up until the midpoint of the century, according to the Census Bureau.



In my own life, broad access to higher education lifted the members of my immediate family out of the working class and into relative affluence. I'm sorry to see that access becoming limited in recent years by prohibitively high costs; I'm not sure the opportunity I enjoyed when I came of age in the late 60s would be there if I were that same young man today.

Ah, the good old days....I remember as late as 1969 dodging wasps in my grandpa's outhouse as a young lad on his rural property he lived on.


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[Mr._Graybeard]

Ah, the good old days....I remember as late as 1969 dodging wasps in my grandpa's outhouse as a young lad on his rural property he lived on.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I remember that too! Maybe we're related ...

 

[sengsational]

What if a magic switch was thrown and every worker became twice as productive? In a market driven system, half of the workforce would be let go. Lets presume that even the safe government jobs also participate. Obviously not realistic, but sometimes taking something to an extreme can shed light.

It would seem to me that there would need to be a worldwide rule that cuts the number of hours that any one person was allowed to work. Go from a 40 hour week to a twenty hour week, and we don't have half the population starving. But such a rule seems very much non free market. But don't we already have something like that rule already? If you work more than X hours, your employer is forced to pay you more by the hour. That wouldn't work for salaried employees, so a standard shorter work week would need to come into play. Employers would need to spend the same on training as they did before the magic switch, but more than if they were allowed to use employees for longer than 20 hours.

Are there other options for what to do if that switch were thrown? I doubt many would think that no intervention would be a good idea, since half of the working population would start clamoring for the scarce jobs, driving the remuneration for work to close to nothing. The economy would screech to a halt. The corporation that was able to have fewer employees would have an advantage, so companies wouldn't go with a short week unless compelled.

How about having the work week float based on a good measure of unemployment? 40% unemployment, (1-.40) * 40 = 24 hour work week.

 

[NW-Bound]

... It would seem to me that there would need to be a worldwide rule that cuts the number of hours that any one person was allowed to work. Go from a 40 hour week to a twenty hour week, and we don't have half the population starving. But such a rule seems very much non free market...

France passed a law setting a 35-hour work week in 2000. It remains controversial, and critics claim it fails to reduce unemployment.

When we go against the free market, we tend to create some distortion leading to unforeseen side effects. There are always people who do not want to work too hard, and some gung-ho types who want to get ahead. In some jobs, there will always be good workers who want to work long hours, and society benefits from them working hard. Prohibiting them from going that extra mile on their own accord is against personal liberty and pursuit of happiness, hence wrong and unconstitutional. What will be next? Will we restrict A students from studying too hard and make C students look bad?

Somehow, I recall this scene from the movie Brazil where Archibald Tuttle, a AC service man, sneaks into an apartment to do an illegal repair, bypassing the system red tape. Tuttle just likes to do his job!

 

[ls99]

Maybe gentrification?

I mean: hand-made cupcakes at 20$ a pop. Exclusive design shoes. hand massaged grassfed lobster.

In other words: artificial scarcity, status competitions.

I feel sadder now.

That can become meaningless when all the plumbing is stopped up.

Then the gentrified complain if the plumber wants more per hour than the lawyer. And if they want timely response, pay a retainer to boot.

 

[HFWR]

If we have driverless trucks, what will country songs be about?

(Well, there's still beer, tractors, beer, heartbreak, beer...)

 

[Walt34]

If we have driverless trucks, what will country songs be about?

(Well, there's still beer, tractors, beer, heartbreak, beer...)

Oh there's plenty left. According to this song, there's still mama, trains, and prison + what you mentioned. Description of the "perfect country song" starts at 3:18 and an example follows.

 

[Independent]

What if a magic switch was thrown and every worker became twice as productive? In a market driven system, half of the workforce would be let go.

Any big change over a short time frame leads to all sorts of problems.

But, as you can see from the post above, US agricultural workers became 30-40 times more productive over a period of 138 years. That's an average of 2.7% per year, and I'm sure we could find periods of much faster growth.

We can find plenty of cases of farmers being forced out by more efficient or luckier neighbors. But, somehow those people who aren't working in agriculture found other jobs. And, on average, those jobs paid better.

I'm not worried about "no jobs at all, because technology replaced everyone". But I do worry about "no jobs at the wages US workers expect, because it's so easy to outsource work".

 

[HFWR]

Oh there's plenty left. According to this song, there's still mama, trains, and prison + what you mentioned. Description of the "perfect country song" starts at 3:18 and an example follows.

Written by Steve Goodman, who wrote "City of New Orleans" and many others...

I was never the entrepreneurial type, which is one solution to this "problem", but I managed to capture some of the profits of capitalism, even while, at times, being jerked around by corporations and the changing economic landscape, by owning stock. So, in a way, that was my small business, obtaining and managing assets. Sort of a miniature Berkshire Hathaway...

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

What if a magic switch was thrown and every worker became twice as productive? In a market driven system, half of the workforce would be let go.

In the market-driven system I'm familiar with, that order of events is usually reversed -- workers are laid off as employers try to maintain profits, and the survivors have get more productive to pick up the slack. There's nothing like a recession to increase worker productivity.